


speak of what survived in the deep ancient place

by pyotr



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drabble Collection, Gen, Mentioned Cannibalism, Multi, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-05-20 18:33:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 49
Words: 21,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14899773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyotr/pseuds/pyotr
Summary: ch. 49: he reads, too, on what things like starvation and cold could possibly do to the mind, the effects of trauma on a human soul. much of it was purely theoretical, of course, but sometimes he would see his brother reflected back to him in the pages, and it scared him.





	1. speak of what survived in the deep ancient place (sophia)

**Author's Note:**

> series of unrelated drabbles. if you would like to request something, leave a comment or send me a message on tumblr @ thomasblanky

she wonders, sometimes, what became of her uncle and his scores of good men, out there on the ice. for all of his shortcomings, sir john was if nothing else an experienced explorer; she clung to that reassurance above all else.

often she fancied that they had all built some sort of ramshackle settlement among the punishing cold, awaiting rescue. she liked to think that upon their return to civilized society they would all be safe and welcomed as heroes to the empire, the location of the passage held aloft and victorious. she thought of her aunt’s smile again, and promised herself that if francis asked her hand, she would finally accept.

but sophia wasn’t naive. she could fool herself all she wanted with silly daydreams of hypothetical what-ifs, could pretend with each new search party that all would be well. she knew the facts as well as anyone else: that those ships had only been provisioned for three years, and that sir john had a history of failure. she would humor lady jane as she drained their family dry, but sophia was not so blind with hope as her aunt.

she knew that they were dead. she knew that they weren’t coming back.

and something in her ached at that, with such desolate thoughts. not for her uncle, though she would surely miss sir john and the happiness that had once suffused the house he had occupied with them; but rather she thought of francis, and the way he had loved her, and how she had never been able to be what he had wanted her to be.

oh, she had loved him, as well, for the way that he made her laugh and the stubborn sort of kindness he showed her, but she could never be a seaman’s wife. she could not do as lady jane had done and simply consign herself to months or even years alone. sophia refused to be a trophy, dusty and solitary on a high shelf. occasionally though, as the years stretch on and on and she turns away suitor after suitor, sophia’s thoughts will stray back to francis as they often did, and she will wonder if it was worth it to deny him happiness time and time again, and if she had said  _yes_ even just once whether or not he would have stayed and lived.


	2. to leave as one thing & return as another (silna)

in the days, weeks, years following, silna tries to remember him as he was.

she knows, distantly, that goodsir-  _harry_ goodsir, that was his name, his whole name- had a bashful sort of smile and that he tripped over his words when he was nervous or excited, and that he had a hungry, inquisitive mind. he had been kind to her.

she knew that harry had been made of so many good and warm things, and when she thinks about him she sees the horror of him in death.

she had not touched his body, when she had seen him last. his face had been still and pale and slack in death, and that had been the most pleasant thing; she could not have helped but to take in the way that her friend had been butchered like an animal, flesh carefully cut from his arms, his legs. it was a sight that made her feel ill.

there was guilt there, in how she had left him, and sadness and pity and revulsion. she should have buried him, she thinks to herself sometimes, cleaned him and wrapped him in furs she did not have and pile him with stones. but instead she could not bring herself to move him, could not bring herself to recognize this mutilated corpse as her harry, soft and sweet and earnest harry.

harry had deserved more than silna could give him, as a friend and as a savior and as a gravedigger.


	3. had this body been held after all these years (silna/goodsir)

the sobs shake through him hard enough that he imagines this must be what it was like to stand in the middle of an earthquake, rather than an ice-locked ship stranded in the arctic. harry bites his lip had enough that he thinks he can taste blood, and still he can’t seem to stop the pathetic, distressed little sounds that fight their way up his throat.

he was a scientist, an academic; he wasn’t meant for all this death and horror. harry had been made for a cushy career in research, a warm hearth, affectionate friends and family. he had only wanted a bit of adventure, not this horror and gore, not what had become of all of them.

someone slips into the narrow bed behind him, small-bodied and soft and very, very familiar. harry stiffens and then relaxes all at once, wanting both to unwind and to curl closer into himself. lady silence’s hand on his arm is heartbreakingly gentle; she is close enough that her nose just barely brushes the nape of his neck, close enough that he can feel her breath on his skin.

he could spend his time thinking about how horribly inappropriate this was, a woman in his bed. he could think about what the people back home would say, but it wouldn’t  _matter_ because this wasn’t britain, and the laws of civilized men held no sway among the ice and the cold.

lady silence was warm where she pressed against him, front to back, one hand laid on his arm and the other curled between them. the anxiety abates slowly, the hard knot of fear in his throat loosening; instead, something else takes its place, sweet and cloying.

“thank you,” harry says in a whisper, sagging with bone-deep exhaustion and knowing she won’t understand the words but needing to say how much of a comfort she was regardless, “you have been a better friend these past weeks than i have deserved.”

he swears, then, that she smiles, and feels the shape of it where her face is pressed to his neck.


	4. you are a ghost like i am a ghost (lady jane)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: balance

jane had always thought that she and her husband had suited each other. they were idealists, the both of them, looking ever forward; he for the empire and she for the people. he had completed her, he had brought such joy to her with his kindness and seemingly endless fount of hope.

she tried to hold on to that hope. she missed him terribly.

oh, jane knew how the admiralty saw her, some frantic old hen clucking and pecking over something that was in no way a woman’s business. exploration was the realm of men; what would an air-headed wife of an incompetent commander know of ships and sailing? but they forgot that jane had travelled the world, and that she was more than aware of her husband’s reputation.

but he  _needed_ her, she knew it, deep inside.

so she put herself to work again, lobbying socialites and various notables as she hosted salons and dinners. she pushed herself, over and over, organizing ships and crews and rations, pouring money into voyage after voyage. sophia was ever her stalwart companion, silent and stolid by her side as she toiled.

jane wanted nothing more than to have her husband back with her. she could feel her hope being sapped after every ship returned with no news. but she tried again and again regardless. she was an old woman, she knew; she feared that she may be doomed to be ignorant towards her husband’s fate for the rest of her days, consigned to incompleteness.


	5. i fell in love with a man who built a house of himself (crozier/silna)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "...she has too much of the savage about her to be seen as fully human..." -dan simmons, _the terror_ , pg 10

she holds her son close to her heart and wonders, for a moment, what might have been had she not been herself.

from the time she was a child, silna had known her destiny. she would follow her father’s footsteps as a shaman and she would spend her days herding the tuunbaq about the ice. she would never be a mother; she loved her family but she would never ask a child what her father had asked of her. she would make do with the family that she found in her people, and her heart would be full enough. 

but real life rarely followed such plans. her father died and silna had given herself over to the tuunbaq, had tried to warn those strange pale men from across the sea, had tried to  _save_ them. but they had all died, out in the cold- they hadn’t listened- and the tuunbaq was dead, and it was all her own failing.

she would live the rest of her days alone; it was what was expected. she accepted that.

(at the same time a part of her rioted and raved, terrified and angry, at the  _unfairness_ of it all, wanted to scream that it wasn’t her fault, none of it was, but she had no tongue to speak with. so she left, with a hollow ache in the pit of her stomach and her head held high.)

the child in her arms snuffles unhappily, and the man asleep beside her makes a small, almost imperceptible sound in sleep. she smoothes the pad of her thumb over the lines in his face and he turns into her hand.

“silna?” he says, voice quiet, rough. her people had called him  _aglooka_ and he had seemed resigned to that, though his own men had other names for him,  _captain,_ and  _crozier,_ and  _francis._

she hums in reply.

“come back to sleep,” he says, half-mumbling, and she smiles slightly as he kisses her palm, feels the way his mouth shapes the words with his strange accent. “it’s too early to be up, yet.”

things could have been so different, if she were someone else- happier, less fraught with tragedy and sadness- but here, and now, safe and surrounded as she was by warmth and contentedness, silna couldn’t find it in her to wish any differently.


	6. all things arched and hopeful (crozier/silna)

“this place is beautiful to me, even now,” goodsir had said at the end, “there is wonder here, captain.”

francis had privately disagreed at the time, submerged in the darkest, most hopeless despair. he looked around and he saw only a world that wanted them dead, from the pale sky to the bleached rocks, but he supposed that goodsir still had enough naivety about him to find such things lovely. francis had known himself to be jaded and pessimistic; any naviety he’d possessed had been beaten out of him long ago.

he understands now, though.

the amazement that suffused through him is like a punch to the gut, strong enough to steal his words. the child in his arms was swaddled in soft caribou skin, his face slack in sleep, round and healthy. a shock of deep black hair curls gently across his forehead.

francis had never held a baby before. he had never thought he would be able to.

silna is sitting up, now, watching them, silent but with a wealth of emotion in her dark eyes. a smile touches her lips, slight but still there, and francis breathes in deep. this place had only ever been a thing to endure, with its endless ice and pale, frigid sunlight; he had never seen the beauty here that would leave one breathless with awe.

he thinks, briefly, of the home he would never see again, ireland’s rolling green hills and london’s crowded streets. he thinks of sophia and the family they could have built in another world, faceless children with her golden hair that tugged at his shirtsleeves in joyous laughter. but that wasn’t a life that was meant for him- it never had been, he had always been far too uncouth for society, too taciturn and crass to ever truly belong in england, to belong to sophia.

his son coos some soft infant sound in his sleep and francis returns silna’s small smile, and for a moment he forgets what if felt like to be cold.


	7. let me hold it lightly (goodsir/silna)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> historical goof: fort resolution was a hudson bay company encampment, not a royal navy outpost.

in another, better world, they survive. in another world, lieutenant fairholme’s party makes it to fort resolution and brings back rescue, salvation in the form of food that is not rotting and men who are not lean-cheeked and hungry-eyed. the officers are all awarded coats that are no longer threadbare from use, and the men wrap themselves reverently in fresh wool blankets, the most ill of them loaded on to sledges.

harry had never been so glad to see people before in all his life.

lady silence shifts slightly beside him, her own new navy-issue wool blanket draped loosely over her furry parka. she seems as stoic and unruffled as ever, watching the others as they bustle about and ready for the long walk south. he had explained his piece, about the spoiled provisions and poisoned men, and now felt rather useless, as his medicine chest had already been packed away and he was far from any shape to be hauling.

but he did not understand why lady silence was still there; she had done her part, had warned them and done her best to keep them all out of danger. she could go back to her own people now and wash her hands of all of them, sorry sods that they were. but she was here, close enough that their elbows bumped every time one of them breathed.

harry could not imagine going back to england, to make his way back up to edinburgh and then to fife, seeing his family again. he felt so far from the young man that had left greenhithe’s port, though scarcely three years had passed since then. 

he had previously thought himself a knowledgeable and intelligent man, a budding naturalist, a hungry academic, and he’d never stopped to consider just how naive he truly was. he could learn all he wanted from books; their impersonal pages would never prepare him for watching a man torn apart in seconds, or for holding hartnell’s hand as he sucked in his last few rattling, terrified breaths.

someone calls a start to the march, voice bellowing and loud, and harry finds himself entirely too exhausted to think overmuch for a long, long time.

lady silence sticks to him like a burr, watching the new men from fort resolution with the same detached and wary curiosity she watched the terrors and erebites with. she never touched him, not deliberately, but they jostled each other with their closeness, and harry is only a little shaken when he clambers into his tent for the night and hears her climb in after him, canvas rustling hardly louder than a sigh.

“you can’t sleep here,” he fusses. there is no way she could have possibly understood the words but she levels him with an almost-imperious look anyways, reading his tone perfectly. 

“it is  _improper_ ,” he stresses, as if english mores had ever had a place here. lady silence doesn’t seem to heed him, instead just brushes past him to tuck her blanket into his sack, as if they were going to share. the thought brings a creeping heat of embarrassment up his neck. “no, no, please don’t –”

he does not know why he is so embarrassed about this now- perhaps rescue has jumpstarted his sensibilities- but she ignores him regardless, pulling off her outer parka. she seemed so small without it, more fragile than he knew her to be. she gives him one last searching look, then kicks off her boots and slips into the sack.

harry almost does not want to join her but he is cold and bone tired and has put up his token resistance. 

he strips down to shirtsleeves and trousers with only the slightest tremble to his hands, borne of exhaustion and nerves. he toes off his boots and hopes that the leather will not freeze as they sleep. it is a tight fit in the sack with the both of them, but they fit together like puzzle pieces, back to front; lady silence’s black hair tickles his nose, and she was warm in his arms even through her caribou skin tunic.

“why are you still here?” he asks, and then pauses as if he had surprised himself with the question. he repeats it in clumsy inuktitut. 

she goes still against him. lady silence would have no comprehensive response- he knew this, had examined her himself after carnivale and found her tongue cut out at the root, seemingly self-inflicted for some strange, mysterious reason- but he could not help himself sometimes in asking more than yes or no questions, questions that she could easily answer.

“you could go back to your people,” he insists. he tries to think of her on a seafaring ship, in england, in scotland, and finds that he can’t summon the image of her in anything but her animal pelts, out among the ice and snow and bitter cold. “you could be safe.”

but she turns in his arms, then, and pulls away enough so that she can look up at him, her breath warm and damp and strangely comforting against his skin. this close he can do little but meet her gaze and finds steel there, and determination, and a deep, deep affection that curls warm in his gut. 

it doesn’t matter than he can’t picture her in his mind anywhere but here; harry knows in that moment that she would follow him to the ends of the earth.


	8. are we all as helpless as we feel (francis)

after everything, it was an  _accident_ that had undone him.

francis had long given up hope of ever seeing home again, wasn’t sure he  _wanted_ to, after all that had happened. he was far from the same man that had left england’s shores and he hardly thought that he deserved to return, sole survivor that he was.

 _tell them that we are dead,_ he had said.  _dead, and gone._

in his mind ross would forever be the resplendent newlywed, bedecked in his medals and dress blues, his hair brushed to shining and his face bright with the joy of wedded bliss. he sat, now, outside the tent and listened to ross’s demands, and the english words felt almost foreign to his ears.

and, oh, francis  _ached._ james had been one of his closest friends, one of the few not put out by his surliness or his irish blood. ross had trusted his experience and  _relied_ on it, had treated him as an equal and spoiled him for all other commanders. francis had grown terribly fond of him.

it hurt now to listen to him so desperate, to know that he would go home empty-handed and wanting. francis dragged himself to his feet- his joints had gone stiff with cold, and he felt so very old- and had made it barely two steps before he can hear the whisper of the tent opening behind him.

“terribly sorry, sir,” says james’s voice, tired and defeated, as either he or his translator bump into him from behind, and francis struggles to keep his mouth shut and head down, makes some vague affirmative sound. he watches from beneath the ruff of his hood as the two englishmen trudge away, a guide leading them back in the direction of whatever camp they had come from.

“quite alright, old friend,” francis whispers to himself long after ross and his man are far out of sight, his heart beating a staccato rhythm behind his ribs. "all’s forgiven.”


	9. so long we become the flowers (bridgens/peglar)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from hozier's "in a week"

there is some special torture, john thinks, to a slow death.

he nurses henry because there was little else that he could do, massages his achy hands and dresses his seeping, ugly wounds. he drinks in henry’s cracked and broken smiles when the man is lucid enough to give them, and kisses his forehead and the tips of his fingers with a tenderness that aches.

john is an old man. the grey in his hair and the creases on his face were not for show; he had lived a decent enough life. he did not seek death- no man did- but he would accept it, if it came.

he could not accept that it came for henry.

their love had always been a secret thing, quiet and hidden, kisses stolen around corners and heavy breathing muffled by a hand. but john loved him nonetheless, loved him enough to watch him be savaged by illness and starvation and still stay by his side. 

“john,” henry says, and it is a rasping echo of what he used to be. his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks and john leans in close to hear him better. he takes a few breaths- they rattle through his lungs like sifting sand. “i don’t want to die.”

“you won’t, love,” says john in his softest, tenderest voice, smoothing his hand over henry’s forehead, fingers skimming his oily brown hair. “you’re a young man yet, henry. you’ll not die any time soon, not if i've anything to say about it.”

henry laughs at that, a gasping, wheezing noise that makes john feel hollowed out and empty inside. “i’m afraid you’ll have no say in it when it comes, john.”


	10. the dream of being warm and staying warm (goodsir/silna)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sequel-ish to chapter seven, 'let me hold it lightly'

after that night, harry did not ask her why she stayed.

in the evenings when they made camp he had begun to teach her english and the alphabet with the help of others who spoke inuktitut more fluently, patiently going over each character with her, writing lightly so that she could trace his letters. he sounded them out for her, spoke slowly as he pointed to things and said their names, as he had in the early days of their communication, their intuktitut equivalent tripping clumsily off of his tongue. eventually she had written out something herself, her name in shaky, untidy letters:  _S I L N A._

harry and smiled at her and called her by name, savoring the feel of it in his mouth, and the look she had given him warmed him down to his bones.

he had thought before that it was strange to see her out of her furs and skins, bedecked in an englishman’s trousers and shirtsleeves, a heavy wool coat that was far too large draped over her shoulders. but he had gotten used to that; they were not so different from her caribou-skin shirt and pants, in the end.

she comes to him now though, as the remainder of franklin’s crew board the ship that was to bring them back to england, looking determined in a simple undyed woolen dress. something inside of him seized up- he is not sure if it is a pleasant sensation or not.

her clothing is the only english thing about her, however. her dark hair is still pulled into her customary braids, and silna looks at him with a familiar sharpness, as if daring him to make a comment. and he wanted to, oh so badly, but he held his tongue on that front because there was a much more obvious question.

“you are not staying?” he asks, and the hope eats at him like a sentient thing, teeth closing around his throat. “that is to say, you will sail with us to england?”

she nods in a sharp, jerking movement, keeping her eyes on his. her fingers are curled into tight fists; her shoulders are rigid. 

it occurs to him suddenly that she has never sailed before, not on a ship like this. she has never left this horrid place, this place that she called home. 

harry smiles at her and holds out his hand, squeezing her fingers when she slips her smaller hand into his own. “i won’t leave you,” he tells her, “i promise.”


	11. in the middle of savage things (crozier/blanky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> historical note 1: esther blanky was thomas blanky's wife, whom he married in 1835. 
> 
> historical note 2: references to blanky evading the law and not own his own name are references to him being jewish and living in england before jewish emancipation; his original surname, before he changed it, was either blenkhorn or blenkenhorn.
> 
> historical note 3: the last men to be executed for buggery in england were killed in november of 1835; the buggery act of 1533, which condoned the usage of corporal punishment for the crime of buggery, wasn't repealed until 1861.

it was not wise to linger, he knew, for buggery was a capital offense- it would cost them their careers, if not their lives- but thomas had always played fast and loose with the rule of law, and francis was so disillusioned with the admiralty that he had no fear of them.

so thomas stayed in francis’s bed, the wool blanket scratchy against his skin as the man himself fetched a damp cloth from the great room. it would have been nice to stay and to shrug off responsibilities a bit longer, but neither of them were particularly sentimental of each other; it would only be wasted time.

“get up, old man,” he hears francis say, as if thomas wasn’t four years his junior. he says something rather disparaging about francis’s mother- the comment swallowed by the pillow- but rolls himself into sitting up regardless, rubbing at his collarbone where there was no doubt now a purpling bruise.

the wet cloth was cold as he dragged it along the insides of his thighs but he’d endured worse,  _was_ enduring worse with the slow poison that worked its way into all of them, and francis sags to sit beside him on the lumpy mattress, straightening his trousers, their shoulders barely brushing.

“esther wouldn’t’ve treated me like this,” is what thomas responds with, a few long moments too late to be anything but abrupt, but that’s how things had always been between them: disjointed and unconventional, but familiar.

“esther would’ve treated you worse,” francis says in a more timely manner, and thomas laughs that ugly cackle of his, too sharp and loud.

“i’m sure she would,” he grins, teeth bared. he offers up the cloth and francis takes it with reluctance, his expression pinched n something like disdain that thomas revels in. for all of his ill-temper and irish blood, francis had still been born into a family with money and connections; thomas, by contrast had nothing, not even his own name. “that woman wouldn’t put up with a quarter’ve what you do, francis.”

“more the fool i,” francis grumbles as thomas rises and puts himself to rights, tugging up his trousers and tucking in his shirt, doing up only half the buttons on his waistcoat and dragging his coat over his shoulders. “to indulge you so much, then.”

“more the fool you,” thomas agrees, and ducks to brush a kiss against the top of francis’s head before leaving.


	12. when i myself am healed (crozier/sophia)

the news of survivors swept through london like a gust of flame, alight with rumors of desperation and murder and wraiths having clawed their way out of cold, arctic graves. 

sophia, for one, nearly shook apart with the waiting. news had arrived early of the death of sir john but none others, leaving the fates of the other men shrouded and uncertain. her aunt had been devastated, of course- sir john had always been lady jane’s sole priority- and though her uncle’s death had been a blow, sophia bolstered herself with her hope.

the names had been published in the paper nearly as soon as the ship had reached england and sophia had been upon it nearly as fast, eyes devouring the printed words as she dragged her finger down the list until she found the name she sought. and there, in bold, black print, it was.

_capt. francis rawdon moira crozier, of  hms terror._

the relief had flooded her strong enough to nearly sweep her off her feet, buckling her knees and making her legs feel like pudding. 

it was days still more before it was appropriate to send a calling card- and more until she was able to coax her aunt far enough from her grief to do so- but the anticipation settled in her gut, burning and twisting as if it had a life of its own. she dressed herself in mourning black, as was custom, but smoothed cold cream across her cheeks and dabbed rouge on her lips.

when the day came he stood looking out of place in the house’s foyer, his hands folded behind his back at parade rest, his dress blues (which had been perfectly tailored just says before his departure in 1845) hanging loose on his frame. he looked thin and sickly, and far older than his years, but his face warmed with something like awe when he caught sight of her and then shuttered, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed that indulgence.

“francis,” she says, feeling like her tongue was stuck to the top of her mouth, feeling like she was floating as she descended the stairs.

“miss cracroft.” francis’s voice is like gravel, low and worn and rumbling with that edge of irish brogue that he had never been able to scrub away, and then softer, “sophia.”

they are suspended there for a moment in still silence, he looking up at her and she looking down at him, before sophia gathers her skirts and hurries down the remaining steps and tosses propriety to the wind.

as she throws her arms about his neck, as his hands settle on her back to hold her closer and he presses his cheek to her hair, sophia smiles for the first time in what felt like years.


	13. to be becalmed is to be abandoned by even the sea (esther blanky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> historical notes: esther is thomas blanky's wife; they were married on the second of january, 1835, in whitby, yorkshire. blanky really did own a tavern at one point, and after his expedition with john ross in 1833 he was awarded a merchant ship. the letter i quote really is a letter that he had sent esther in which he talked about expecting to be gone with the franklin expedition for up to six or seven years, and in 1852 she had it published.

esther had liked to think that she had known what she was getting into when she had married thomas.

he had always been very frank with her, far more blunt than a man had any right to be with a woman, but she had appreciated it. esther was no shrinking flower; she was worldly enough, and well enough read, and had never fooled herself with things like silly fantasies. she hadn’t held out for things like money or status or a handsome man- just love. only love.

thomas had never had much to offer her, and he had been plain about that, too. he had owned a bar for a bit, had owned a ship for an even more brief amount of time. he could not offer her some sort of fairytale life, and she hadn’t expected him to. when they married in 1835, thomas had been a rugged arctic explorer straddling bankruptcy, and esther had loved him with a comfort and constancy like she had known him her entire life.

for all of that though she had never expected him to stay.

he had come to her one evening smelling like the sea and whispered in her ear about ice reflecting the moon and stars and the lights that danced in the sky, about the way the handle of the axe had felt in his hand in the long dark. he had talked about how hunger had hollowed him out and how ugly resentment had kept him on his feet, and she had rolled over and kissed him.

“you will come back,” she says to him in a hushed voice, because she had understood that this was a goodbye in the only language he had. after all, esther had always known him fluently.

“i will try,” he tells her, baldly honest, “i will try, but i can’t make you promises. that world may kill me.”

 _do not allow any person to dishearten you on the length of our absence,_ he had written to her from disko bay, the last letter that she had received, the words seeming too pretty and poetic to have been penned by her thomas,  _but look forward with hope that providence will at length of time restore us safely to you._

it had taken her eight long years to accept that it had killed him, that he had been lost amongst the ice and the cold and the lights that danced in the sky, and that he would not be coming home to her, this time.


	14. like your cheek across mine in another life (goodsir/silna)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sequel to chapter ten, 'the dream of being warm and staying warm'
> 
> historical notes: harry goodsir had six siblings, of which he was the exact middle: two sister (jane and agnes) and four brothers (john, joseph, robert, and archibald). his mother elizabeth died in 1844, his father died in 1848, and archibald died in 1849. jane, joseph, and robert all lived into the 1890s, john died in 1867, and there's no known death date for agnes.

the first thing harry had done upon setting foot back in greenhithe was post a letter.

he had written and scrapped more letters than could be counted in the time between their arrival at fort resolution and setting sail for england, but he had sent not a single one. the words had never been right, he reasoned with himself, and this more than anything needed the right words.

news of the survival of a fraction of franklin’s crew would no doubt precede him to edinburgh and to anstruther, to his  _family,_ no doubt flooding them with equal measures of hope and dread. he needed to write to them, to offer some paltry reassurance from hundreds of miles away.

he needed to explain silna.

harry had felt some guilt for her, on the voyage home, stood with her as she looked out west over the sea to the hell they were leaving behind them. it was an old superstition, women bringing bad luck aboard ships, but it was enough to ward off the majority of the ship’s crew and a handful of the remaining franklin men. she stuck to him like a burr, nodded along when captain crozier deigned to speak to her in quiet netsilik. 

he needed to explain silna because he knew that couldn’t shake her even if he had wanted to- and he most certainly did not want to. something about her warmed him, from her fleeting glances to the secret way her fingertips brushed the back of his hand, light as a hummingbird’s wing.

she follows him up the length of britain, from london to edinburgh and then to anstruther, and harry looks upon these places as if with new eyes, as if as a different person. silna is silent but not wordless beside him, pulling out a set of bound pages and a stubby pencil from the pocket she had sewn into all four of her plain dresses.

 _home,_ she writes in her child-like scrawl, and harry knows it’s not a question.  _brave._

“as i’ll ever be,” he says with only the slightest wry edge to his voice, and he knocks on the door.

there are footsteps inside, creaking down the stairs, and if he closes his eyes he can track their progress simply by remembering which stairs are the noisiest; he thinks of a childhood spent sneaking down those same stairs. the door opens to reveal jane, looking tired, her curly dark hair pulled severely away from her face.

“harry,” she breathes after an impossibly long moment, dragging him into a tight, tight hug. she had been nearing thirty by the time he had left greenhithe, with no intention to marry, stepping into a nurturing role in those terrible months their mother spent wasting away. she was only two years older, but before that distance had felt infinitely larger; now, though, she was small in his arms, and shaking.

“janey,” he says into her hair, and feels tears prickling his eyes as he squeezes her close.

“well, you should come inside,” she manages, pulling away and wiping unobtrusively at her cheeks. her eyes slide from his face- drinking in, no doubt, the new holloness to his cheeks, the permanent furrow between his brows- to silna behind him, stolid and steady, and something unreadable and almost imperceptible changes in her expression. “your friend, as well.”

harry gestures silna in after him and she comes, looking unperturbed by jane’s cool assessment of her and instead deeply curious in what harry learned was her way, her hands folded at her waist as she looked around with narrow focus. to harry these halls were as familiar to him as his own face, but silna had little enough experience with european architecture.

she leads them to the sitting room where both john and robert are- a text of some sort open in john’s lap, robert scribbling on some spare scrap of paper- and the hearth is dark and unlit despite the spring chill, the sound of someone moving upstairs creaking the floorboards. it is robert who looks up first with a strangled sort of noise, rocking to his feet seemingly against his own volition.

robert launches himself at harry with all the enthusiasm a twenty-five year old could muster and it made harry  _ache,_ to feel the heft of him in his arms, here and now. at twenty-two, robert had still had that silly sort of ranginess that came with the last growth spurts of youth; now he’d filled out into a handsome, solid-looking sort that filled harry with pride. john was the opposite, and were it not for the similar coloring that all seven of they children had shared, one would hardly to think he and robert related- whereas robert was stocky and ebullient, john was tall and slim, almost melancholy in his quiet contemplation. he rises from his own seat more slowly, more reserved, as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders.

“are the others here?” harry asks before either brother can say a word, feeling suddenly and uncomfortably urgent. there was something wrong, here, in the way that jane looked so tired and john so harassed, the nervous creases around robert’s eyes. “archie and joseph? father?”

“father’s dead,” says robert, at the same time john says, “archibald is dying.”

“joseph’s upstairs,” jane offers after a beat, a moment where it feels to harry as if all the air had been sucked from the room, burning his lungs like the cold arctic winter. “i could go fetch him, if you’d like.”

“no, no. i,” harry starts, then stops, his chest feeling tight. some distant, clinical part of him rounds up all of his confused, flurried thoughts and tucked them away until there is nothing. in the world that he had left behind his father had not been dead, and archie had not been dying. “i believe i need a moment.”

a hand catches his elbow and guides him towards the nearest char, john’s vacated seat. he turns slightly, catches silna’s eye, her face smooth and passive save for a tiny furrow between her brows, a slight tightening at her mouth. he had become skilled in reading her, during their time together, plucking out her minute expressions. 

“father’s dead?” is the question harry chooses to start with, covering silna’s hand on his arm with his own, squeezing her fingers slightly for reassurance. she squeezes back.

“yes,” john says, equal parts miserable and apologetic, shoulders slumped. “i’m sure this isn’t the way that you would have wanted to learn...”

“we think it was a broken heart.” robert talks right over his more softly spoken eldest brother, as bold as ever. “he was never the same after mother died, you know. he just wasn’t there, in a way; the light had left him.”

harry supposes he could understand; their mother had always been the warmth in their family, the sun they all orbited around. with her gone, it was no wonder that their father had let himself succumb to whatever sadness swallowed him whole.

“and archie?” harry asks, “you sad he was dying?”

“he came home ill from edinburgh four days ago. john and robert came with him.” jane brushes her fingers along the side of her face, as if tucking away stray hairs, but there was nothing there. there’s a question there, in how her eyes linger on silna and her hand on his arm, the casual intimacy of covering her hand with his own. “he’s in a bad way, harry. none of the treatments have worked; he asked for peace.”

harry thinks, in some vague and incongruent moment, of david young. he feels ill. 

he could have asked about what treatments, exactly, archibald had been subject to, about his symptoms and if they were giving him anything for comfort, if he was eating or not. but harry was tired, so tired of death and illness, and was in a house of doctors besides; he could step down just this one time, let someone else take care of things. 

“i’m sorry,” is what he says eventually, having sagged against the back of the chair, the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes. he had left aboard the erebus nearly four years ago, now, but never once had he felt that the world was crumbling quite so much as he did now. “i’m sorry, i... it has been quite a lot to take in, you understand...”

“of course, harry.” a hand settles on his shoulder and squeezes, reassuring. john, then.

“archie’s sleeping, anyway,” says robert, who had settled back into his own seat across the rug. “that’s mostly all he does, these days. who’s your friend, harry?”

the change in topic was enough to give one vertigo, but harry was thankful for it; he could not think about his baby brother just a floor above, life draining out of the boy he’d watched grow up. archibald had been scarcely eighteen years old when he had left england.

“this is silna,” harry says, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. the tiniest hint of a smile quirks the corner of her mouth when their eyes meet.

“i never would have taken you for the type, harry,” robert comments,  _whatever_ that meant, and he leans forward curiously. “does she speak english?”

“robert,” john admonishes, at the same time jane barks out, “manners!”

but harry is smiling, weary though it is. “ask yourself.”

“i can,” silna says, though the words are garbled and strangely accented. he had never heard her speak english, had heard her speak netsilik rarely enough since cutting out her own tongue, the root of the organ blunt and unwieldy in her mouth. 

“huh,” robert grunts, but he seems impressed, nodding vaguely.

“silna, dear,” jane says, with the air of putting an unpleasant matter to rest, “come with me and i’ll show you to your room. harry, you won’t mind sharing with robert, will you, love?”

he didn’t, as it turned out, and the evening segued into a quiet dinner. harry did not like how harried his siblings looked, how subdued, and he felt the absences at the table keenly; he remembered the days when all nine of them would crowd about and bow their heads and say grace before the meal, smiles on their faces as one child or the other tried their hand at sneaking bites early.

there were only four of them now, and silna, who sat beside him still and silent, her fork scraping lightly over her plate.

joseph did not come down to join them for dinner, though the floorboards above their heads creaked as he moved about upstairs. harry helped jane with the dishes- the same way he had always used to help their mother, in the hope of treats or some other reward- and wished his siblings off to bed, begging a few moments off to himself.

silna joined him as he sat on the rug before the fire and he leaned into her, seeking the comfort that she offered without words. he had thought that returning to rosebank would erase the horrors of the past few years; instead, it merely compounded them. he could feel the shadows closing in even now, even as he keenly felt the absence of his mother and father. 

if he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that he was still aboard erebus with its creaking wooden hull, or in terror camp covered by fluttering canvas. 

he looks to silna as her hand presses comfortingly against his shoulder blades, the flickering fire casting her in shades of gold and bronze. swathed as she may have been in a proper english dress, she felt more foreign to him than she ever had out there among the ice. she seemed smaller, now, not diminished or reduced but rather withdrawn, and he wonders if he regrets her decision to return with him.

“i think i liked you better in trousers,” he tells her quietly, with an air of confidence. she glances at him, lovely in the firelight.

they had kissed before, once or twice, after carnivale and the long weeks spent marching to fort resolution. they had always been chaste things, a simple brush of lips, just this side of friendly; harry had wanted more, of course he had, but had never quite mustered up the courage.

but now silna’s fingers cup his jaw as if he were something precious and fragile, her mouth pressed firmly to his own. some distant part of him notes that her lips are chapped, as if she’d been chewing them anxiously; he curls his hand very, very gently over her shoulder.

the kiss is sweet, comforting, and enough to leave him dizzy with delight. silna doesn’t go far- her eyes are big and dark as she watches him, their noses bumping- and her breath is warm, her fingertips carding through the beard he’d managed to grow. 

“thank you,” harry says, soft, with a smile on his face, brushing his thumb across the soft skin of her throat just above her collar, “for coming all this way, dear silna.”

she has never needed words to express herself, has always gotten along well enough on gestures or looks, and this is no different. silna smiles and kisses him again, and it feels simultaneously like  _you’re welcome_ and  _for you._


	15. read what dust scrawls (crozier/blanky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hungry-hobbits said:  
> Crozier x Your Person Of Choice - sharing tea

thomas has never been the type for delicate things, for fine clothes and fancy table manners. he’d always had too much trouble biting his tongue and reigning in his thoughts, had never had the breeding or the blood to make up for it.

francis was the same.  _birds of a feather,_ esther used to say of the two of them, her lips turned up in wry amusement.  _peas in a pod, my dear._

a tea set had somehow survived their long trek, the porcelain on the pot only slightly chipped. the tea itself was the sorriest, weakest drink that thomas had ever had, the water not even hot, but he sipped at it anyway because even lukewarm was better than swallowing snow. that, and the stores of grog had been abandoned along with the ships, the barrels too heavy to haul.

“could go for summat stiffer,” thomas says, his mind catching on the thought before he can reel it back in. 

but francis knows the innocuous comment for what it was and snorts, instead of going stiff and awkward in that way of his whenever thomas stuck his foot in it. he holds his own teacup close to his chest, not drinking, seeming to simply revel in holding something that didn’t freeze his fingers.

“you’ll not find that out here, tom,” says francis, a dour cast to his tone, and thomas laughs, loud and ugly. it wasn’t funny in the least, but perhaps that was why he laughed. “you could get your hands in goodsir’s medicine chest, but anything there’d be a far cry from some good whisky.”

the stump of his leg ached, a deepset throb that he felt down in his bones, and thomas digs his fingers in hard, imagining that he could feel the slight sting of his ragged nails through the layers he wore. still, though, he smiled, something sharp and cutting, and thinks that maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad way to go.


	16. while others drown beneath the waves (robert goodsir)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> robert was harry's second youngest brother (there were seven goodsir siblings and harry was the middle child, with three older siblings and three younger siblings)

the wooden hull creaked around him, and robert felt as if he wanted to crawl out of his skin. 

he hated sailing. the adventure, the thrill of it-  _that,_ that he loved, the way his blood rushed in his ears, his heart thudding in his chest. robert wanted to see the world, wanted to live a full life. he wanted to experience things that no one had ever experienced before.

he supposed he was jealous of harry, for that.

robert had always been a jealous child. he’d been the youngest and then he hadn’t, babied and coddled until another baby came along and he lost the spotlight. he didn’t care much to be a doctor but that was what was expected of him, by his father and grandfather and his brothers, and all he wanted was someone to be proud of him. so he studied medicine, like his father and grandfather and john and harry.

harry had left on an adventure. and then harry had died.

he had held out hope for longer than he should have, that his gentle older brother would return home to them, to  _him,_ but as with all things that hope had died, and robert had been wrecked with it. first his mother, then his father, then harry. and then archie had come home sick and robert could not stand it anymore, could not be idle and watch his family leave him one by one.

he’d signed on to an expedition almost as soon as he was able, arctic-bound.

“so you’re a doctor?” the officer asks, looking over his papers.

“yes,” robert lies through his teeth. the assumed title looms over him heavy and oppressive. “i’m a goodsir, after all.”


	17. i am my own stranger (little)

time, now, seems immaterial.

it slips through his fingers like sand but he drives them ever forward, leaving a long line of bodies and detritus in their wake. men drop every day, and what happens afterwards is something that edward does not think about, the way they all descend on their fallen brothers like vultures, the bones boiled for broth.

he doesn’t recognize his own hands as he holds them in front of his face, too slight and shaky, bones showing through his skin.

he feels no pain as he pierces his own face, threading dull-edged pocket chains through the punctured skin. he does not know why he does it, only know that he must as the cold creeps in through his threadbare greatcoat. there is a noise from outside, some sort of groan, a death rattle, and edward closes his eyes, pretends it’s the creaking of a ship. 

the world is hazy and indistinct. he does not know how to exist outside of the pain, now; does not know why he had walked so long, or to where. he does not remember why he had once felt such urgency, other than the fact that he had needed to not be where he had been. 

the cold is less biting, now, rather warm and numbing. he runs his fingers gingerly over the chains in his face. he doesn’t think of the cookpot just outside, suspended over a dying fire and filled with bones.


	18. your dreams absentminded and huge (silna)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hungry-hobbits asked:
> 
> Silna + "Peace"

for most of her life, silna had been content. 

her days had been rote, wake up and work and go to sleep, over and over again. and it had been  _good_ work, and fulfilling, and she had laid down every night secure in her place in the world. it had been a good life. it had been a comfortable life.

and then, suddenly, it wasn’t, and she was alone.

in the blink of an eye and a flash of gunfire, that simple, fulfilling life had been stolen from her. the place that these strange, pale men took her to creaked and groaned in the ice, solid but not solid enough to keep the cold from seeping in. they spoke to her in strange languages and tripping, halting words that sat wrongly on their tongues, and silna closed her eyes and held her silence.

she did not know if she had ever feared the tuunbaq. it had never been cruel to her, had never taken anything from her that she had not been prepared to give. it had fed her and kept her safe; now it was dead, and her people had left her.

she stands tall and breathes in deep, the cold air searing through her lungs and making her feel alive. the sunlight above was pale and watery, and the horizon was still, and silna was content.


	19. so small in its vastness (sir john)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hungry-hobbits asked:
> 
> prompst Sir John + "faith" (i know u did a faith one with crozier but ;3c)

sir john had always seen himself as a good christian. he went to services and studied scripture and he tithed. he said his prayers before meals and before bed, and he conducted his household in a godly manner.

he held christ in his heart. why, then, had god abandoned him?

the holy spirit was in all things, in every man and creature, in nature itself. but this place, this place was godless- it was heresy to say so, but sir john felt it in his bones. he still knelt and said his prayers at meals and before sleep, but there was a futility to the action, now, a hollowness that became more and more with each man lost. he records their names and prays for their souls and tries not to speculate on who would be next.

he does not meet the eyes of the men around him, instead keeps his chin lifted and his eyes on the sky, keeps a vague smile about his mouth. it would not do to let any of them see the way he wavered in his faith, he thinks, they needed him to be strong and unflappable. they needed a leader.

so he said his prayers and read his scripture and gave his sermons. he praised god, and he pretended that it still meant something.


	20. i can see the point in growing something (goodsir/silna)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sequel to chapter fourteen, 'like your cheek across mine in another life'. part four in my creatively named silna goes to anstruther au.
> 
> cw for vague mentions of childbirth.

they had been married in a quiet ceremony. they could have just as easily merely lived as husband and wife without having ever stepped foot in a chapel, their vows private things between the two of them, but joseph had insisted- had wanted to be a part of his little brother’s new life, he had said with a magnanimous air.

he had levelled harry with a heavy look while saying such, though, putting emphasis on the  _new life._ harry had rolled his eyes and thanked him.

so they were married, legally, the eccentric doctor and his mute netsilik wife. there were no children soon after, not like his brother had so unsubtly intimated, but harry was content with that. he had always wanted children- had been brought up amongst five siblings himself- but silna had never given any indication that she desired to be a mother, and so harry had never pressed.

(harry was a doctor, and not ignorant to they ways women had to prevent conception; likewise, he was not nearly foolish enough to underestimate silna’s cleverness.)

it was a surprise when she fell pregnant, her hand pressed to the still-flat plane of her stomach as she watches him with something like mingled vulnerability and defiance, as if she had expected him to be upset by this development, as if he didn’t think of fatherhood as a blessing.

“truly?” he breathes, full of awe, and her expression loosens as she nods.

he kisses her, then, tender and hopeful, and her fingers are light as she closes them around his wrists.

the pregnancy itself was fraught. silna had never truly assimilated to the european way of things, not truly( and harry had never expected her to, had never wished for her to; had he wanted a european wife he would have married a european woman) and she struggled against the expectations of not only a woman, but also a woman with child. she chafed under the coddling that his- their- family subjected her to. 

the birth itself was uncomplicated. silna frustrated the midwives, he had been told, with her strange customs and ideas about childbirth, but they were consummate professionals and took it in stride. harry had paced in the hall for hours, sometimes fetching rags or boiling water, listening to silna’s muted grunts of pain through the partially open door. jane flitted in and out to reassure or roll her eyes at him, depending on how the labor was progressing.

in the end though he found himself holding a baby girl in swaddling cloths, her face pink and pinched, eyes screwed shut. silna lay on the bed, watching them, sweaty but satisfied, the barest hint of a smile lurking about her lips; harry looked up at her, and she dragged her thumb across his cheek.

“i love you,” he says, barely above a whisper, “both of you, so much.”

 _our family,_ she seemed to be saying, and something infinitely tender bloomed in harry’s chest then, something warm and suffocating.  _look at our family._


	21. on the crest of the wave (jopson/little)

edward loved sailing.

he had loved it since he was a boy, listening to the crash of waves and smelling sea salt. the creaking of a ship’s hull felt like home to him, and the swaying of a hammock had always suited him better than any mattress. the cramped confines below decks, the crush of men, had always made him feel a part of something.

he didn’t even mind the cold, most days.

now, though, he hated the cramped way that most ships were, the way men were packed in like sardines, the lack of privacy. thomas’s breath was hot against his neck, body pressing him to the wall with barely enough room the shuffle around and topple to the lumpy mattress of his bunk. the both of them did their best to keep quiet, trading messy kisses as edward wormed his hands beneath the layers of thomas’s vest and shirt.

thomas wedged his knee between edward’s thighs, and edward swallows a gasp as footsteps creak just outside the door.

“shh,” thomas hushes him, and then makes a soft noise of his own as edward scrapes his nails over his ribs, his back arching and hips canting forward in a way that makes edward pleased beyond words. “someone... someone will hear.”

 _then they will hear,_ edward wants to say, but he presses a kiss to the underside of thomas’s jaw instead, the barest hint of teeth. he says, just a tad breathless, “i’ll be careful, mister jopson.”

edward had always loved sailing, had loved it since he was a boy dreaming of the sea. but he knew now that there were some ways in which is could be improved.


	22. a kind of wounded desperation (jopson/little)

_we leave the ill behind,_ he had said hours ago, the desperate eyes of the most healthy among them upon him, and he had felt as if he had said the right thing.  _we will come back for them._

perhaps the worst part of is that he had felt that he was in the right. sacrifice those who had the least likely chances to save the others. it was a ruthless calculus, but what else was he to do? he had to save as many men as he could, and the sick only slowed them, reduced their chances.

he cards his fingers through thomas’s hair, careful as to not pull too hard and make him bleed, and sighs deep.

“what’s that for?” thomas’s voice is weak, soft not through kindness but feebleness, a sad echo of himself. he is leaning heavily against edward’s shoulder and his face looks skull-like when he looks up, eyes sunken and cheekbones thrown into stark relief, the hollows of his face darkened by untamed stubble.

edward says, “nothing. it’s nothing.”

thomas’s mouth shifts into a frown, chapped lips pulling downwards. he was a perceptive sort, he was, and edward had never been much for lying. had never had a reason to be. “tell me, edward.”

“it’s nothing, love.” the endearment, which once would have rendered him senseless and fumbling with nerves, falls from his tongue so easily now, and thomas’s expression softens with it. “just hunger, and fear. we’ve come too far to fail now.”

thomas’s touch is gentle as he drags his fingertips over edward’s cheek, scraping just slightly over the unruly beard he’s grown. “you’ll get us home, though. you and the captain. i know you will.”

they would leave in the morning, and thomas would be one of the men left behind to die. he would never see home again, england’s shores or his poor addled mother. edward musters up a smile, a weak and wavering thing, even as he feels sick with guilt. 


	23. an ache on loop in the window (collins)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> implied collins/billy orren, can be read as one-sided

his name had been billy orren.

henry tells himself that, over and over. he closes his eyes and suddenly he’s back underwater, going numb, his movements slowed and clumsy as billy’s frozen corpse floats toward him. billy’s eyes were open, his expression somehow desperate and terrified, his skin blue and frozen in death.

he retches when he’s alone, scrambling for something, anything to catch the bile he spits up.

he tries to remember billy in life, instead, the warm brush of his fingers, the softness of his laugh. the way the flickering candlelight would catch in his brown eyes and make them look so, so warm.

but billy’s death, as terrible as it had been, seemed to have been some sort of portent, a warning of more terrible things to come. for all of that, though, his death had been the one that had hit the hardest. the others forgot, in the months and years that followed, the names of those who were the first to die among them, but henry didn’t.

his name had been billy orren, and he was dead, and perhaps that was a mercy.


	24. so small in its vastness (blanky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hungry-hobbits asked:
> 
> blanky + "holy water"

thomas had never much been one for worship.

as a lad his mother had whispered stories in his ears; when he was still small she had wrapped him in her arms and swayed to and fro, her voice rising and falling in prayer. he had closed his eyes and let himself be taken over, a feeling of belonging that he’d not experienced since. 

he didn’t worship, not on his own. he’d been married in a church, and esther said her quick prayers before meals, but thomas had never followed. he’d never felt the need to.

he was, after all, closest to god when he was upon a ship, breathing in the sea breeze and feeling the salt spray on his skin. there was something about the expanse of the ocean, of being surrounded by the water on all sides, that made him feel most at ease in his skin, made him think,  _yes, this is how the world is meant to be._

there was something unsullied, after all, about the sea, about vast expanses unexplored and untouched by man. the adventure thrilled him, but the journey- the act of waiting, one place or another, swaying days spent on the water- settled his mind and calmed his nerves in a way that nothing else could. 

he closed his eyes now, and he remembered rocking in his mother’s arms as she prayed, and it felt like the way a ship swayed with the ocean waves.


	25. just as human as fear (little)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hungry-hobbits said:  
> little + "rage"

eventually he will be angry about it all, about the unfairness of it, about how each and every single one of them deserved more than what god had seen fit to give them. it will burn through him hot and bright and strangle his tongue in his throat, choking off his words; he will stew silent in the injustice. 

for now, though, he is tired, too tired to rage as he may have wanted to. thomas is gentle with him, always gentle, the barest brush of cracked lips against his forehead, a feather-light touch of fingers on his cheek. they lean into each other, seeking solace, a belonging in each other’s company. 

it was  _unfair._

edward knew now that he was going to die; he could feel it in his bones, in the way that everything inside of him ached like shattered glass. he made himself keep moving because he was too much of a coward for the alternative, too afraid to lie down and sleep and never wake up, too scared of what he may face afterwards.

he was angry about that, too.

and eventually he will be angry with  _himself,_ holding himself together with unsteady hands, shaking his way through choked off sobs. he had left them there, hadn’t he, left them to die, captain crozier and the rest,  _thomas._ perhaps that was a better fate, though, than what they had come to, and edward hated himself for it, hated the way his hands shook as they remembered how to spark a fire, hated the way his mouth watered even as his heart dreaded what came next. 

they had been good men, all of them, good men with loves and families, and this place had taken and taken until there was only a handful of them left, stripped of their senses and left with only the unfairness of it all.


	26. my disposition is a learned burial (crozier/blanky)

“what do you need?”

francis’s voice is thick, rough already with unshed tears. he had never been a man prone to such strong displays of emotion, thomas knew; even when the cracroft woman had broken his heart and brought him low, francis had merely fallen into a melancholy and become snappish and sullen. he hadn’t cried, not that thomas had seen.

and that just made the guilt all the heavier to bear. thomas had done his damndest to live a life with no regrets, to be able not to wonder about what-ifs, but francis had always been an anomaly, something different from the rest, even in this.

and there were so many things that thomas wanted to say to his question,  _a belly of hot food_ or  _a rest_ or  _you._

but they had never been the sentimental sort, the two of them, so thomas just smiles something crooked and cracked, rattles off about tobacco and a smoke. francis’s face is pinched with displeasure, with grief like he’s already been lost, and it near breaks thomas’s heart; but they’re both old hands at this by now, surviving loss.

he’s not sure who moves first but in the space between one breath and another they are clinging to each other and thomas can feel the way that francis’s breath hitches, the way his fingers curl tight into his coat, as if only god himself could have made the man let go. thomas, for his part, presses his face to francis’s shoulder and holds just as tight.

“for what it’s worth,” thomas says in a whisper, “i’m glad it’s you, franny.”

“i wish it wasn’t, tom,” is francis’s response.


	27. like a light in the flesh (jopson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jopzier is a bad ship this is not romantic

nights- or what passed for them, aboard terror- were fitful now.

things had shifted, in recent weeks. there was a restlessness among the officers in the absence that the captain had left, the whole of them still reeling from the loss of sir john, and the men whispered uneasily about the esquimaux woman being kept aboard erebus. there was no sign of a thaw come spring and, with the knowledge that there was  _something_ out there prowling in the dark, the air was tense.

men asked him of the captain’s condition when he came to fetch meals, but thomas said nothing, just kept his mouth shut and his chin up. little would walk him down the hall between the mess and captain crozier’s quarters, sometimes, to ward off persistent questions, with little more than a few halting words and a stiff nod.

thomas takes care of the captain. he wipes the sweat from his brow and cleans up his messes and feeds him carefully, holds his shaking hands as he slips in and out of fevered lucidity. he sleeps most of the time, now, his face pinched even in rest, his brows furrowed and mouth pressed in a tight line.

thomas tries not to think too deeply of the stresses that cause such an expression. there were many things crozier may have been thinking of, in his deluded state, but it wasn’t thomas’s place to wonder; as a steward it was his place to simply see to the captain’s needs, and try not to feel too tender the times he awoke and gifted him with a cracked and tired smile.

 

 


	28. always wonder what i am doing back there (goodsir & stanley)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HUNGRY-HOBBITS: stanley + "lover"

in harry’s estimation, stephen stanley was chilly, bland sort of man.

everything he did was for his own gain, performed with a blunt sort of directness. his hands had a surgeon’s nimbleness, but he held bonesaws and scalpels like they were a butcher’s knives. his work was adequate and effectual and completely unsympathetic.

it was because of these things that harry didn’t much like him. medicine, to harry, had always been about helping, about healing people and causing as little pain as possible. to doctor stanley, it was a means of advancement. 

but there were moments, sometimes, in the quiet where he would flip open a journal, and harry would glance up at the rustle of paper just in time to see stanley’s expression soften, the way he would run his fingertips tenderly over the page. the lines in his face, usually so harsh and prone to cruelty, would smooth, and he would look years and years younger.

harry didn’t like doctor stanley. he didn’t want to think of him as a man with a family, with things that he enjoyed and felt passion for; it was easy to picture him as an unfeeling monolith, and to hate him for it. whatever was in his journal, though, that he looked upon so sweetly, proved that he was a man after all, same as the rest of them.


	29. gentler or more fervent than what was given to us (hickey)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cicadaemon asked:
> 
> Mal I love you so much. Would you ever write anything related to OG Hickey and Rat Bitch Hickey meeting or just anything about OG Hickey?

in another world, a different world, cornelius hickey walks aboard terror with a limerick accent and a smile.

he has a small bag slung over his shoulder, same as all the others, filled with little things from home: a pair of wool mittens, rolled socks, a tatty bible. he wasn’t much sure about sailing but he liked the thought of adventure, and his ma needed the money besides; it wasn’t much, ‘cause the crown paid a pittance to anyone who wasn’t a ranking officer, but it was better than starving. 

in this world, cornelius hickey isn’t murdered in a dingy back alley, his head swimming with cheap alcohol and a knife twisted in his gut.

instead he is nothing special, a caulker’s mate, a small-time petty officer bumping elbows with the rest of the nondescript seamen. he’s a cheerful sort, though, and considerate, and well-liked, and starving and dying no different from any other man.

they are still being hunted by a monster through the dark days and too-bright nights, chased across the tundra as hunger strips them raw and the lead wracks their bodies. but there are no murders, this time, and cornelius boys his head every night before bed and does his best to remember his prayers, his ma’s face, his da’s voice. he’s doing this for them, after all; they’ll get him through it.

there is a mutiny but cornelius isn’t a part of it, ravaged by illness, near as weak as a newborn calf. he feels like glass, now, too fragile by far, and every breath’s a struggle that he’s quickly losing the will for. he’s too far gone by the time he realizes the rest have moved on and left the sick behind, barely even notices that no one comes to check on him anymore, slipping in and out of fancies.

he thinks he sees his ma, sometimes, her sweet face hovering above his own, her expression pinched with the same concern she’d had whenever he got sick as a lad. or sometimes he’ll see his da, sitting on the end of his cot and haloed by the pale, stark light that seeps through the canvas, bent over his whittling. he’s not alone, at the end, not when he’s got his family there with him.

in another life cornelius hickey doesn’t die, alone and forgotten, bleeding out in some dirty london street. in another life, it's either the starving or the sickness that kills him, long after his mind’s already gone.


	30. a world vaster & more beautiful (bridgens/peglar)

“can i kiss you?”

men like john were not kind. they were hardened by a world that told them they should not exist, calloused by the secrets they held. they were unsavory company to keep, and john knew that well. harry, though, was young and handsome and  _good,_ too good for someone like him. too good to be  _like_ him.

but there was something stubborn in the set of his jaw as he asked that question, like he was clenching his teeth to brace against a  _no,_  and the flickering light caught his eyes in a way that made john feel tender. he found, voice catching in his throat, that he couldn’t deny this man anything.

john nods, short and abrupt.

the kiss itself isn’t spectacular, too hesitating and halting to be truly enjoyable, but harry’s touch is terrifyingly gentle and the touch of his lips across john’s feels like the best thing in the world. it is only a moment- only a fraction of a second- but it was as if the world had shifted on its axis.

john brushes his fingertips, feather-light, across harry’s cheek and harry leans into it, his eyes shut, lashes dark in the dim light. 

“you are a gift, mister peglar,” john rasps, little more than a whisper, and the barest hint of a smile slips across harry’s mouth. “full of surprises.”


	31. i'm singing like a bird about it now (jopson/little)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cicadaemon said:  
> “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a while” with Jopson/Little <3
> 
> title from hozier's "shrike"

they survive.

they return to england and, after some back and forth among the admiralty, edward is offered a command and a captainship of a small exploratory vessel. he doesn’t hear much more than that- he turns it down. he does not know if he will ever be able to stomach sailing again, not without the fear, not without seeing the faces of the dead.

his father was disappointed, of course; he had pulled in favors to get edward a commission in the first place, and his refusal of not only a captainship but also the admiralty was a smudge on their family. his mother, while never involving herself between himself and his father directly, would ask edward to walk her to salons she attended with other wives and their daughters. 

it was horribly, painfully transparent. living in his family’s home made his skin itch.

his salvation was thomas, and the tiny flat that the steward had secured in the city. edward would escape there often, to the cramped comfort of it, the familiarity and the understanding in thomas’s face.

“i think i’ll write a book,” he says conversationally, one rainy afternoon. the fire sputters weakly in its hearth, and the lamp on the table is dim and flickering.

“will you?” thomas asks mildly, but edward can hear the affection in his voice, the softness. “about what?”

“about king william land,” he responds, “but better, brighter. without all the death and misery. i could write a story where we discover the passage, and all of us are welcomed home as heroes rather than beacons of tragedy.”

thomas shuffles closer to where edward sits in the window and throws his scratchy wool blanket over the both of them, pressing close. edward closes his eyes and listens: to the soft patter of rain outside, the crackle of the fire, thomas’s soft breathing. neither of them say anything for a long, long time after that.

it’s thomas that breaks the silence, though, when edward hovers on the cusp of sleep, his eyes heavy like lead. he says, “edward, i have something to tell you.”

“hmm?”

“i never blamed you.” thomas’s voice is hushed, somber in a way that he rarely is. “for leaving the sick. there were no good choices left, then.”

edward sucks in a shuddering breath. “it was still the wrong one, though.”

“you did what you could,” thomas says firmly, and him arm tightens around edward’s shoulders. “you saved who you could. don’t feel guilty about that.”

the remorse washes over him in waves regardless, a heavy sort of ache deep in his chest, and he leans bonelessly against thomas. the man had always seemed to have the right words, had always known how to take care of others- and that was dangerous, for men like edward, too entirely taken in by charm and kindness.

“i love you, thomas,” edward sighs, “i think.”

to thomas’s credit he only pauses for a moment, his breath hitching for the barest fraction of a second. “i love you, too, edward.”


	32. i've no language left to say it (goodsir/silna)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from hozier's "foreigner's god"
> 
> sequel to chapter 20 'i can see the point in growing something'. part five in the silna goes to anstruther au.

harry had never imagined, as a younger man, that he would marry; he had had little enough interest in it, too absorbed in his work and his research, his passions. he’d thought that maybe,  _maybe_ he’d marry some understanding and obliging woman whom he could tolerate and that he could tolerate in turn, and then they would have a child or three, and he would live to be a well respected naturalist with a well respected family and it would all be very average and dispassionate.

instead he finds himself sitting in his sister’s garden at rosebank, a baby swaddled in his arms, watching silna chase their daughter among the flowers. it is a bright day, the noon sun warm on his skin. the baby’s pudgy hand is curled around his index finger and harry coos at him, soft and sweet, and finds himself to be horribly, terribly content. 

he does not have the words, in english or in inuktitut, to express how grateful he is to silna for the gifts that she has given him. it was not all sacrifice, he knew- she loved him, and she loved their children with an intensity that was sometimes overwhelming- but she had left her home and plunged herself into a deeply unfamiliar world, for him.

so he doesn’t say anything about it, not really, just takes her face in his hands at night and kisses her with as much feeling as he can muster and pours all of himself into it. she didn’t have to know the reason, but he hoped that she would be able to read him regardless.

“i love you,” he whispers to her between kisses, “ _asavakkit._ i love you.”

her palm is warm when she cups his cheek, her dark eyes very serious, and when she kisses him again he knows that she understands.


	33. i will not ask and neither should you (sophia)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from hozier's "like real people do"

sophia was twenty-three the first time she met him.

it had been at a dinner they had hosted while her uncle was still governor of van dieman’s land. the antarctic voyage of the not-yet-knighted james clark ross was set to launch the following morning and her aunt had organized a bit of a party in their honor,  _to recognize future heroes of the empire,_ jane had said, with a vague sort of smile.

(sophia knew that ross wasn’t yet married. he was, to her aunt, a fine prospect for marriage- handsome and unattached, with fine breeding and an already prestigious career under his belt- and while he was charming, sophia found she had little interest in the man.)

she had found herself revolving around ross’s second, that night. francis was dour even then, and sullen, but he had been kind to her in his way; he had listened when she spoke, and engaged in kind. he treated her like a  _person,_ not like a doll or a potential wife, and she found that she quite liked it.

at the end of the night he had kissed her knuckles and looked right into her eyes and said, his voice rough with irish brogue, “it was a pleasure to meet you, miss cracroft.”

he was twenty years her senior, and middle-bred and irish, but she found herself quite enamored with him regardless.

she did not see him again for four years. in 1843 they left van dieman’s land and returned to london, the same year ross and his men returned from the antarctic pack. she hoped beyond all hope that he would call, and spent her days pacing the house and mucking up her needlework with distracted thoughts, to the point that aunt jane would give her an exasperated look whenever she stood from her seat. 

francis came to the house, eventually, and with little precursor asked to marry her.

sophia, in all of her nerves, said no.

and then again, when he asked a second time, and she swallowed the way her heart broke at the resignation on his face, at his quiet acceptance. oh, she loved him, she did- that admiration had blossomed during his visits, the nights that they went to the opera together, the walks that they took in the garden arm-in-arm- but sophia knew what was expected of her. her aunt and uncle had high hopes for her; to marry a man of decent blood who was properly english, some young and handsome man destined for knighthood and a storied career.

they didn’t hope for her to marry a man like francis.

and she felt wretched for it, for the way that she would take what francis offered to her, his light questioning touches and stolen kisses. it felt as if she were the one taking advantage when he looked at her, mouth quirked in a small smile and hope in his eyes, the way the tension in him eased when she leaned into him. 

“take care of my uncle,” she had begged him when word came of the admiralty’s orders. sophia was no sheltered fool, and knew well of the arctic’s perils and her uncle’s failings. “if nothing else, francis, bring him home alive.”

he had clasped her shoulders in his hands and said, “i can offer you nothing but my best, sophia.”

the last time she had seen him had been when the ships left harbor, standing at terror’s quarterdeck as the ships groaned out to sea, and her heart had been full with dread and the sort of ache that only ever comes to the unfulfilled.


	34. before the men that cannot save him (robert goodsir)

robert sustains himself on hope- on the heady, exhilarating feeling- and so he takes the voyages back to back, one right after the other, in search of his brother.

he did not enjoy them- he had never been partial to sailing and the days were bitterly cold, plagued by dips of depression and despair. he feared what he might find, if they came to it, cannibal camps and the remains of bodies butchered for food. he feared that harry might be one of them.

no sign of his brother was found the first expedition. he joined another, the following year, with the same result.

he returns to anstruther in a strange state of mind, despondent and yet wondering, as those who lack closure are wont to do. the others, at least- his mother and father, archibald- he’d seen their bodies, seen their graves, knew they were dead and what had happened to them. harry had just sailed away and then vanished, like fog in the early morning. it drove him just a little bit mad.

so he sits with jane in her garden, some afternoons, watches her prune and weed her plants. she is content and single-minded in her work; robert wishes he were the same.

“it’s not your fault, robert,” she says to him one day, her voice low and even and steady in that way of hers. “you’ve no need to blame yourself.”

“for what?” he asks, startled out of some reverie, some recollection of the ice and the hopelessness.

“for harry.” she tugs hard on a thistle and uproots it, tossing it away with the other weeds. “it was his decision to sail north. none of us knew what would happen, and you’re not responsible for bringing him home again.”

“we should have found him, though. we should have found  _something.”_

jane doesn’t reply immediately, fiddling around with her plants. robert isn’t sure which ones these are- he had never shared her botannical passion, or harry’s naturalist tendencies. there is dirt under her nails, though, and wiped across her apron. 

“it’s not a failure that you didn’t find him,” she says. “and certainly not  _your_ failure. would you rather have found him, some wretched and rotting corpse, and had to bring him home?”

he doesn’t know. he thinks that maybe he would have.

she smiles at him, then, small and a little sad. “sometimes, robert, it’s better to have hope than to have grief.”


	35. a private story of unwritten grief & happiness (robert goodsir)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> can be read as an au companion of the last entry.
> 
> robert went on two expeditions to search for harry, one in 1849 and the other in 1850, both led by sir james clark ross and captain william penny. simultaneously, john rae was mapping the arctic coast between 1849 and 1851; he discovered the northwest passage and was the first to bring back evidence of franklin's expedition, but also stories of cannibalism, and so was basically blacklisted by lady jane franklin and died in obscurity.

there is a distinct difference between hoping for something you know will not happen, and having it actually happen.

robert had never truly believed he would see harry again. he had hoped it, and that hope had propelled him to places he otherwise never would have gone, but he hadn’t believed. call him a cynic, perhaps, but he’d read of the inhospitable arctic, same as everyone else: nothing grew there, hardly any game to hunt, populated by wary natives. 

but he had tried anyway. he had thrown himself into the searching.

“he says that there’s a family off from the rest,” robert can hear the translator murmur to captain penny. they had made contact with a band of inuit and were desperate for information, disheartened and dismayed by the abandoned camps they had found thus far. “a witch and a white man. and a child.”

robert straightens in the same way the rest of their party do, flush with interest, with hope. a witch, a white man, and a child- while odds were that it wasn’t harry, whoever it was could at least relay what had happened to him. robert felt suffocated.

the inuit man leads them up to the top of a ridge and points down the other side, and says something in his strange tongue that robert doesn’t understand. the translator pauses for a moment, before saying, “he tells us to be careful.”

and then the inuit man turns around and trudges back to the larger camp.

robert is not the first to move from the ridge; he feels glued to the spot. instead, captain penny begins the descent and the others follow after him. the shale slips and slides beneath their boots, making for slow going; half way down, a woman ducks out of the caribou-skin hut, her silhouette stark against the pale ground.

she does not move, just stands and watches, and robert feels a prickle at the back of his neck.

“hello,” captain penny says to her once they are on more even ground, within hearing distance. he sounds a bit winded, and the translator rattles off his words in inuktitut. “we mean you no harm. we were told that-”

the woman makes a cutting motion with her hand, a clean diagonal slice downwards, and penny falls quiet. she holds up her hand, a strangely familiar signal to  _wait,_ and then slips back into the hut. 

and wait they do, shifting awkward and silent in the cold. it’s not the woman that returns to them, though, but a man. he is pale-skinned, his hair is dark and curly, the lower half of his face concealed by a thick beard. but his eyes- his eyes, those robert would recognize anywhere.

“harry,” robert blurts, and he pushes his way unceremoniously to the front of the group, closer to his brother, closer to this ghost. 

the man- harry,  _harry-_ doesn’t respond immediately and instead looks at him, startled and speechless. something in his expression shifts, unreadable under the beard and from time spent apart, and then he reaches for robert. he says, “oh, bob...”

robert had not seen his brother in over five years, and now here he is, improbable, clinging to him in the middle of the arctic waste. harry feels thin, still, under his parka, and robert just holds him tighter.

“we thought you were dead,” he whispers to harry, “and we thought that was a mercy.”

“maybe it would have been,” harry whispers back, and his voice sounds strange and different, accented with something other than home. “but i am alive, and you are here, and that is mercy enough for now.”


	36. as the light lies on these white walls (little/jopson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this was going to be nsfw but then i got tired

he wakes, sometimes, shaking from a nightmare and feeling as if he would never be warm again.

edward remembers keenly the horror of it all, of the hunger and the cold, watching as the world around him fell apart. he had kept himself, mostly, as the others succumbed to their hysteria and their failing minds, and he hadn’t even had the will left to feel anything other than guilt.

but they made it home. against all odds, they had made it home.

he stifles his breathing in the pillow, hard and fast, his heart beating too quickly in his chest. the nightmare was still there in the back of his mind, phantom pangs of hunger and tendrils of cold that penetrated to his bones, but thomas was warm curled against his back, the arm slung over his middle tightening.

“edward?” thomas’s lips ghost over the back of his neck, voice still rough with sleep. he is solid and very warm; edward breathes in deep and tries to pull himself back. “alright?”

“yes,” he responds, and its little more than a whisper, “i’m alright.”

thomas hums, a soft little sound, an presses a kiss to the nape of edward’s neck; he tries not to shiver at the contact and thomas pauses, his chilly nose brushing the skin just behind edward’s ear.

“are you sure?”

“yes,” he says again, though this time thomas’s hand is pressed flat against his stomach and perhaps he is breathless with something other than lingering fear. he is sure that thomas can feel the way his heart stutters as he slides his hand up, taking the nightshirt along with it; he would have sworn up and down that he felt a smile pressed into his skin.

“your heartbeat’s still fast.” perhaps it was the darkness or the closeness of the moment, but their words were still whispered despite it only being them in the cramped little loft. “and you’re breathing in that fast way you do when you’re scared.”

“i’m fine, thomas,” edward tells him, rolling over to face the other man proper. there are pillow creases pressed into thomas’s cheek, his dark hair rumpled from sleep, and it felt terribly intimate. “it was just a nightmare.”

they stay there like that for a moment, suspended and tangled in blankets, breathing each other’s air. then thomas kisses him and it feels like things slot into place; it feels like the most tender thing in the world. 


	37. and the guilt for wanting it (blanky/esther)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> corrections to previous historical notes on esther blanky:
> 
> she and thomas were married on january 2nd, 1835. she had been relatively recently widowed, and had a daughter from that marriage that was about a year old in 1834. the daughter was also named esther, and then she and thomas had another daughter about two years later named hannah. esther was maybe 12 when the terror and erebus left england in 1845, and hannah was about 10. neither of the girls ever married, and hannah i believe was open about her religion because she is listed as jewish in an 1871 census. the house maid that i mention here, named catherine, was also a real person; she and another servant are listed on an 1851 census as employed by mrs. esther blanky.
> 
> the bit about them living in liverpool is also historical fact; blanky himself was not only a polar veteran but also a merchant and i believe a whaler? he received his own ship from the admiralty after returning from the arctic with ross in 1833 and operated it as a merchant vessel, in addition to operating a tavern.

see, the thing was that after a while, thomas hadn’t expected to return.

there comes a point where the rest of the world feels so far away, where one begins to forget what it was like, life before. thomas had been there and back; he had been certain that he was going to die there, that he had traded the crowded streets of liverpool for the barren view of king william land. he had felt the hunger gnawing at his belly, had felt the lead poisoning beginning to take its toll- because that’s what it was, francis had confided in him, they were all eating their poison- and he had laid back on the cool shale and felt the nip of the chilly air on his face and he had closed his eyes.

he had been ready to die, he knew that for certain. and he’d had a good run of it, too.

but now he stood here, back in liverpool, before the house that he had lived in once. inside were his wife and his daughters, changed in ways that he couldn’t even begin to fathom; but then, wasn’t he, too, changed? he was still gaunt from years of ill-feeding, still recovering like some sort of invalid from the way that the hunger and the sickness had ravaged him, and for the love of god he had lost a leg. 

(he pushes away the other thoughts, thoughts of dead men, thoughts of monsters lurking in the dark. those had changed him, as well, though there was no way he could put them to words or speak of them with someone who had not had the same thoughts.)

he knocks on the door and pretends that his hand isn’t shaking.

it is a housemaid that answers, the same girl they’d hired just before he had left. catherine, he thinks, and then almost laughs, because out of all the tiny details he had forgotten about life before the ice, he had remembered that. there is a strange look of incomprehension on her face before her eyes go wide as saucers, and she hurries away shouting, “mrs. blanky! mrs. blanky!”

thomas figured that was invitation enough to come inside.

so he steps into the foyer, and the clunk of his fake leg sounds strange and hollow against the wooden floors. It all looked the same, it did, but there was something different about it, an air of otherness that shrouded the house.

“why all the fuss, catherine?” that was esther, his wife, her voice at the top of the stairs, skirts swishing as she descends. “surely whatever happened can’t be that much of a disaster.”

thomas sucks in a breath (it’s good, he thinks, to breathe air that doesn't freeze his lungs) and braces himself, fears for a moment that the part of him that was ready for this had been left back in the arctic. he has not seen his family in six years and he wondered. perhaps irrationally, if they still had a place for him.

(there were places he could go if they didn’t, he knew that francis wouldn’t hesitate to take him into his home and perhaps even his bed if he had given up his dogged pursuit of that cracroft girl. there were clubs, too, for men like him, for old sailors with nothing to do with their days. he would be fine. he would hurt, but he would be fine.)

esther’s steps on the stairs pause and thomas turns to look, something thick caught in his throat. she looks older, more gray in her hair and more lines in her face, but she looked graceful with it, her dress a mourning black. she, too, seemed stunned, her eyes wide and mouth in a moue of surprise, her fingers gripping white-knuckled at the banister.

“tom,” she breathes, like a gust of air, but she doesn’t move from her place five steps above the bottom. “you’re alive. you’re here.”

“i could go back,” he says, “and die.”

she gathers her skirts in her hands and takes the last few steps slowly, staring as if he were an apparition, something that would disappear if she looked away. he supposed he understood; this still felt like a dream, to him, that he would wake up and be gone from this wistful dream.

“if you leave,” she starts, and her voice only shakes a little as her fingertips brush his cheek, “i’ll hunt you down, and then you really will be dead.”

he laughs- a rough, scratchy sound- and leans into her hand, cupping it to his face with one of his own. “that place doesn’t hold a flame to you, essie.”

she pulls him to her, then, her arms strong around him, and thomas holds her just as tightly, filled with the same sort of aggrieved affection he had felt when he had begged francis to let him die. 

“tom, you bastard,” esther says to him, and her voice is thick with tears; he chokes back a noise of his own, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and presses his face to her shoulder. “you bastard, we mourned you. we thought you were dead, and it broke our hearts.”

“i was,” he tells her, “i was, for a while, i was dead in all the ways that mattered.”

she doesn’t push, doesn’t ask him what he means, and instead just squeezes him closer, as if having him so near would heal all the hurt and grief and uncertainty of the past few years. and, god above, he loves her for it, more than he could ever put into words.


	38. the gladness of summer afternoon (blanky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sequel-ish to last chapter. hannah blanky was ten years old in 1845 when the terror and erebus set sail for the northwest passage. she is the youngest (and only biological) of thomas blanky's two daughters.
> 
> if blanky seems ooc its because 1) this is from hannah's pov so we don't really see his own thoughts, and 2) he's returning to a family who had given him up for dead after six or seven years, down a leg and with a boat load of ptsd probably

hannah didn’t remember her father much.

she had been ten years old when he had left them to sail to the arctic. she vaguely remembered his face, brown hair going grey, loud laughter. she remembered that she had loved him.

but his absence had defined her life regardless. she had watched her mother slowly, slowly give up hope, had heard the muffled crying from her room at night. essie had been more stubborn about it, her jaw set, penning letters to london and signing their mother’s name at the bottom. eventually they had put away the two photos of him that they had, and the household donned their mourning black.

and so they fell into a new routine. mama ran the house and managed the businesses that papa had left behind. essie wrote and wrote and wrote and took occasional trips to london to meet with ladies’ fundraising circles. hannah did her studies and carried out her chores like a dutiful daughter.

she comes in through the servants’ door that day, as she usually does, and hands her groceries off to their cook margaret. she hears voices, unintelligible, and the creaking of footsteps. the hallway is empty when she peeks her head out, so mama must be taking a visitor in the sitting room; she’d be remiss not to say hello, nevermind the fact that she was curious. mama almost never took visitors at home, and all business meetings were taken at her office across town.

“i’m home, mama,” she says from the doorway, her hands clasped neatly in front of her. and then, with a shallow dip of courtesy, “hello.”

the guest is a ragged-looking man, seated in one of the chairs with his left leg stretched stiffly in front of him. his face looked too thin, almost gaunt, his grey-brown hair pulled back into a queue. it’s subtle, but there is something stricken in his face when he looks at her, a familiarity in the shape of his eyes, his nose.

“hannah,” he rasps, and as he struggles to his feet she realizes that he was wearing a prosthetic. her mother was at his elbow in an instant to help, but he gently shook her off. “oh, my girl, you’ve grown up without me.”

something ticks off in her brain at that, the strange familiarity,  _my girl._ but no- he was dead, they had mourned him, tried to move on. she had, at least; essie had hung on to some fervent scrap of hope, elated when news came to them of survivors. perhaps it was easier because it was hard for hannah to remember a time in her life when it wasn’t just her sister, their mother, and herself.

he was older than she had always pictured him, more aged and worn than he had seemed in grainy daguerreotypes. he looks ragged, but there are smile lines on his face that spoke of past joy, and there was something hopeful about him, something resilient.

“papa,” she says, and her voice cracks on the word, but it was worth it to see the smile that spread across his face.


	39. white white spinning stars around me (jopson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hungry-hobbits asked:
> 
> jopson + "silence"

it is the quiet that thomas cannot abide by the most, the moments between tragedies when everything is still and silent. he is uncomfortable with it, almost antsy, wanting to crawl out of his skin with the waiting.

so he busies himself instead, taking on little things, mending and washing and tending upon tending upon tending. he brings the captain the drink he requests-  _always_ requests, there was scarcely a moment that captain crozier was without a glass in his hand- and ferries him his hot meals, pouring and serving in the officer’s mess.

thomas knows how to do these things. they are easy and familiar, and they bring him peace.

it was the nights that plagued him the worst, the hours he was given in the long dark to rest. a ship was never truly silent, creaking in the ice, footsteps in the all or on the deck above. it was as close as he came to quiet, here, and he was mad with it, wrapped tight in his coat and blanket and still feeling the cold creeping in.

he found that he preferred the work. the quiet gave him too much time to think.


	40. more sea than land am i (crozier)

francis thinks, sometimes, of thomas and the girls he’d left behind.

oh, he knew that nearly all of his men had had families, mothers and siblings and wives and children that they had promised to return to, but his mind always strayed back to thomas and esther and their daughters. he remembered young esther’s quiet countenance, hannah’s gap-toothed smile; he hoped that they were well.

and there’s the guilt, of course- he’d made so many promises over the years, and had broken all of them. he had promised sophia to keep sir john alive, and had failed; he had promised esther he would take care of thomas, and now he was dead; he had promised thomas that he would take care of his girls if something had happened to him, and here francis was still drifting in the arctic, with no intention to ever return to britain.

a part of him feels as though he  _should_ return, if only to deliver personally the news of thomas’s death to his family. to talk of him in those last few years, how he had made it almost to the end, how he had gone off to die alone in order to save the rest of them. he could have at least offered that comfort, he thinks, to tell esther and the girls that out of all of that death, tom’s was the only one that wasn’t senseless.

it would be hollow comfort, he knew, but comfort nonetheless.

but he couldn’t do it. he couldn’t return there and think of all the men he’d left with, all the men left behind on that unforgiving island. perhaps it was a type of cowardice but no, the ice was a part of him now; francis knew that he would never leave, that it had taken root deep within his flesh to keep him there. 


	41. or the voice of nothing (esther blanky)

there is a dark part to her husband, esther knows, that he will never allow her to see. 

she had heard the rumors, of murder and cannibalism and ghosts, but the darkness had been there long before tom came home to them in that fall of ‘51. she’d see it, sometimes, in the flash of his eye or the sharpness of a smile, and she thinks that it started with ross way back in ‘33, taken up on that long, long walk to fury beach. 

but he never speaks of it, and she doesn’t push. men must have their secrets, and esther shared near every other aspect of her husband’s life. 

the girls pick up on it too now though, old enough to understand at least a little bit. it worried essie the most because she knew what it was like, to have a father and then lose him, in a way that hannah had been too young to truly understand the first time around. essie will grip her arm on the bad days and give her a scared, worried look, and esther would shoo her off because really, what could they do?

tom was irrevocably changed from the man that had kissed her cheek and walked out her door in ‘45. he had brought a piece of the arctic back with him, or perhaps he had left a bit of himself there, an absence or extra that left him crippled and plagued by nightmares. esther did what she could, held him in the dark as he clung to her and sobbed into her shoulder, fetched things when his prosthetic gave him trouble, because these were the only things that she  _could_ do.

there was a darkness to tom, a changed aspect of him that esther couldn’t understand and never would, a lack of experience that she wasn’t sure she should wish she had.


	42. now i hang on this thing they call dreams (sophia)

oftentimes she would find herself staring down the thames, standing on the pier as dockhands bustled about her, pretending that she could see out to sea.

it was the last place she had seen him, aboard terror’s deck as her uncle’s looming ships left greenhithe’s port, the may air warm and sweet. the creeping morning sun had put color in his cheeks and he had held her gaze until he was drawn away. her aunt’s hand had settled on her arm, then, and swept her towards their carriage home.

“sophia, really,” lady jane says to her disapprovingly as the carriage wheels thump jarringly across the cobblestones, “nothing will ever come from your…  _attachment_ to francis. you must turn your gaze higher, my dear.”

she had gotten used to her aunt’s particular brand of disdain.

but she didn’t particularly want anyone  _higher._ she had mingled enough to no longer be naive, and all she was worth was her family connections and her pretty face. but francis was different. oh, she had no doubt that if they married he would use her social standing to leverage himself higher with the admiralty, and she knew that he appreciated her pretty face, but he saw her as a person, too. he was surly and ill-bred and no great reader but he still engaged her in conversation over whatever novel she had been reading at the time, content to listen to her speak as they walked their rounds of the garden, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow.

had she been any other woman she would have given herself over to sorry long ago, would have meekly ducked her head and done her duty and accept the first proposal her aunt deemed suitable. but she was not any other woman, and was stubborn besides, and so she clings to those last tattered scraps of hope and imagines that she could see the ocean stretching to the horizon.


	43. the sunbeams that glittered on the waves (helpman)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> edwin james howard helpman was clerk-in-charge aboard terror, meaning that he basically managed all of crozier's paperwork. his father was a navy captain and his brother philip, who was 15 years edwin's senior, was a commander. edwin was twenty-two years old when franklin and his men left england in 1845.
> 
> wrt to the show, he appears briefly int he officer's dinner in the first episode, and in the background during hickey's whipping

see, the thing about edwin helpman was that he never seemed to leave any impressions.

he was good at his job. he kept the captain’s papers neat and organized, even when the man himself was not. he was smart, too, sharply so, but quiet and unassuming, bland. he was forever cast in his brother’s shadow, and appeared to have little passion to escape it.

but edwin knew who he was. he had his books, and the cool arctic air, and the chess games he occasionally played with hodgson after dinner. (they were neither of them skilled players, but in the end it wasn’t even really about the game, was it?) he was twenty-three years old, and he loved his family, and his hands were smooth with desk work, and it had all led him north.

even frozen in, unmoving and hunted by something incomprehensible, the ice stretching to the horizon and glinting with the last few dying rays of sun was awe-inducing, beautiful. he had tried his hand at sketching it, once, reluctant to relinquish the sight, but his fingers had quickly grown stiff in the cold and he had never been much of an artist, anyway.

but for all of this, the cold and the fear and the despondency, edwin supposed he was content enough. he had never liked the navy, or sailing, or managing another man’s affairs, but he could imagine worse endings than this, surrounded on all sides by bare ice and, for all intents and purposes, free.


	44. let them go and be ghosts (blanky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> has a bit of crozier/blanky if you're not into that, but it's just introspection and can be read as one-sided if you want

perhaps he has always been a bit of a cynic, but thomas has never been a fool.

there comes a point where he knows that he will not be going home. he sits with francis long into what passes for night here in this place, listening as he rattles out accounting of their remaining rations, strategizes the safest ways to move them all south. and thomas helps, sometimes, pointing out a route or fallacy that had been overlooked.

but francis was a hopeful creature; in times of crisis he looked toward a better future.

thomas knew what it was like to starve, though. he knew what it was like to crawl, empty-bellied, across the snow and ice and shale. he knew what it was like to hate so fiercely that he burned with it. he knew what it was like to be dead in all the ways that mattered, and without hope, and he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t live through it all again.

it was different this time, though. he was starved and sick, his flesh pus-ridden and rotting, but he couldn’t bring himself to despise francis. it was his earnestness, his genuine care for those that were left and the way he took each death like a blow, so different from ross had been, on that awful and horrible death march that led them to fury beach and had miraculously claimed only a handful of lives.

(it was a terrible contrast to what he saw now, franklin’s men-, no,  _francis’s_ men dropping like flies, the rest of them too weak and ill and approaching death themselves to provide burials. too many had died for sermons to mean anything, anymore.)

or perhaps it was their history; he and francis had shared so much that sometimes thomas felt that francis was more a part of him than his own wife. he loved esther, he did, but there would always be some things he couldn’t tell her and some things she couldn’t understand, things that francis knew well. and he loved him for it, likely more than he should have, and francis knew that, too. 

(he fancies, sometimes, that francis loves him, too.)

but now thomas was right back to where he had sworn he would never be again, and he knew that this time it would kill him. he accepted it, and esther, ever practical, had always known that there was a chance he wouldn’t return home to her. but she was a good woman, a strong woman, a widow two times over; she could take care of herself, and she would raise their daughters well.

so, thomas knew that the only thing awaiting him was death. he was at peace with that. but francis- no, francis had to  _live,_ had to survive this horrid place and find joy for himself, joy that he’d been running from his whole life, and thomas would do his damnedest to make sure that happened.


	45. and not to yield (crozier/blanky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> francienolan asked:  
> blanky + welcome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure when crozier and blanky were meant to have met, but blanky's wedding on january 2nd, 1835, fits neatly into the year that crozier had between his placement in portugal and an expedition he went on with jcr, so. yeah.
> 
> also i may have gotten blanky's age wrong in earlier chapters, he was born in 1801 so he would have been 34 here AT THE OLDEST, so he was probably about 33. francis was 38.

there was a heavy layer of snow outside, laid thick upon the roofs but turned to unpleasant slush in the street, and the sky was the bleak, pale grey that came with winter. it was the type of weather that thomas thrived in, after years spent aboard whalers and merchant vessels in the cold north.

“nervous?” francis asks, fiddling with thomas’s collar for the thousandth time; thomas makes an irritated noise and swats him away. 

“if you keep asking,” he says, “i surely will be.”

francis is sober- or as close as he could get to it- and thomas appreciates that, he really does, but it also means that francis is restless and fidgety, which he appreciates considerably less. he covers francis’s hand with his own where it is pressed against his chest, right over his heart, and feels the tiniest tremble in his fingers.

“you’re more nervous that i am, i think,” thomas says, and though his voice is light he watches francis’s face carefully, takes in the way his mouth turned down at the corners and the way he didn’t meet his eyes. had he been anyone else he would have taken francis’s surliness at face value, but thomas loved him enough to know otherwise.

it takes a moment, but he answers, “i suppose i am.”

thomas doesn’t push, doesn’t ask any more of him, but he squeezes his fingers and waits, patient. francis sighs, then, the tension seeping out of him, and he slides his hand to the back of thomas’s neck and pulls him forward, foreheads bumping. it something tender and so, so unlike them that thomas can feel his breath catch somewhere deep in his chest.

“you and i, tom,” francis says, and it’s quiet, a whisper that thomas feels more than hears, “the two of us, we were never meant to settle.”

thomas knew what he meant; it had been something they shared in common, more in love with the sea than they could be with any one person. but thomas didn’t have a family, not like francis did, and he wanted someone to care about him, about what happened to him, and he found that spending time on dry ground didn’t itch as much if he had someone to share it with.

“maybe,” is what he settles on. “maybe not. but esther- damn it, francis, she’s a good woman and i love her, and she loves me. it’s not something i thought i needed, and i’m not sure i could live without it now that i know what it’s like.”

francis’s eyes are closed, his brows furrowed, and thomas’s mouth slips into a frown. “i need a home, francis.”

“do you?”

thomas laughs a little, a puff of breath as he pulls away, but there’s a smile on his face now. “you’re welcome in any home i’ve got, francis, don’t think you aren’t.”

the wedding is held in a little chapel in whitby, nondescript, and it is a small, intimate affair. a handful of people are gathered as an audience, and esther’s dress is a pale powder blue, matching the little silk flower tucked into thomas’s lapel. she smiles at him, small and knowing, as he glances toward francis in the first pew, and something unspoken and warm swells between his ribs.


	46. storms of a different kind (blanky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flexing my post-carnivale writing muscles

when tom wakes up, his head cloudy and every nerve in his body lanced with pain, he finds that everything has gone to shit.

his left leg’s gone at the knee, and had he been more clearheaded before he supposed he should have expected that. there’s no prosthetic yet but he wouldn’t have been able to use it even if there was, the wound still too new and raw, and moving any muscle sent him gasping and sweating with the ache of it. he does find a crutch, though, leaned up against the wall at his bedside.

he also learns that francis has quarantined himself with illness. 

tom curses and struggles at that, because francis is his friend and he’ll be damned if they aren’t at least suffering together, but mcdonald holds him down and favors him with a stern look, says that if tom’s not going to behave then measures will be taken to make sure he doesn’t  _mis_ behave, and he settles after that, because though the doctor is genial and good-natured, there’s not a second of doubt that he’d follow through on the threat.

he does go to see francis, though, as soon as he’s able, hobbling along with his crutch and one hand on the wall to keep his balance.

“captain is  _very_ ill, sir.” tom had always thought jopson a good lad, even-keeled enough to weather francis’s moods with a smile, and he’d respected him for it. that respect was dwindling quickly with every second the man tried to bar him. “he’s not seeing any visitors at this time.”

“oh, he’ll see me,” tom says darkly, but jopson doesn’t budge. “whether he wants it or not.”

the man even has the stones to look him in the eye, and in any other situation tom would’ve been impressed. “i’m under strict orders, sir.”

he opens his mouth to offer some sharp, barbed reply, the kind of cruelty that tom excels in, but there’s a cough from behind the door that jopson guards, a dry-sounding retch and a pathetic, “tom?”

and tom bares his teeth at the lad and shoulders past him, into the dimly-lit room that smells of sick and stale sweat, and limps his way to francis’s bedside. he sits on the bunk because that sort of irreverent familiarity is a cornerstone to them, and he takes francis’s hand (it feels weak and fever-hot in his grip), noting the sweat that dots his brow.

“i’m here,” he says, voice far softer than the tone he’d taken with jopson.

“where,” francis wheezes, and he blinks his eyes open, gaze unfocused and pupils blown wide and dark, “esther, the girls, where...?”

“just downstairs, duck, safe an’ sound. they’ll not get sick,” he soothes. these lies are easy comfort; it’s not the first time he’s coaxed francis through delirium, though certainly the first time out of the comfort of his own home. he glances back at the steward hovering in the doorway. “how long’s he been off his drink?”

something tense twists at jopson’s mouth, and when he answers the response sounds reluctant. “since the night that monster attacked  _terror_.”

tom straightens with a frown; that’d been nigh on a fortnight ago, and he couldn’t remember the last time francis had gone so long without something to sip on. years, perhaps. 

“that’s why he’s ill.” it’s not a question.

“yes,” jopson confirms regardless, “by his own request. he asked us not to give him any, even if he begged. we’ve kept to that, sir.”

“stop calling me sir,” tom scolds, but it’s half-hearted. he looks closer at his face, the tired lines and dark rings around his eyes. “who’s  _we?”_

“myself,” the steward offers after a pause. “captain fitzjames. lieutenant little. no one else is aware, save for doctor mcdonald. i don’t believe even doctor peddie knows.”

there’s a part of him that feels almost offended that francis wouldn’t trust him with this, with this sort of vulnerability, but he supposes he’d been rather occupied at the time the decision was made. and then he’d been on bedrest since, under the watchful eyes of mcdonald and peddie, and had little enough news.

“well, i’m here now,” he says decisively, and he takes up a rag to dab away the sweat that beaded at francis’s brow. the man’s face pinches at the contact, but he makes no reaction save a soft groan. “go get some rest, lad.”

“but,” jopson starts, but tom waves him away.

“dealt with my number’ve drunks before,” he interrupts, “and an ill francis crozier besides. if i need anything, i’ll holler; someone’s bound to hear.”

jopson hovers a moment in indecision but the exhaustion is written into every movement he makes, and finally his shoulders slump and he offers a nod. “i’ll inform doctor mcdonald, then.”

“and after that, straight to bed,” he says, and jopson makes a noise of agreement before slipping out the door and closing it softly behind him.

tom turns back to francis and takes up his hand again, pressing a lingering kiss to his knuckles, francis stirs a bit, mumbles, “you’re not s’posed to see me, tom.”

“oh, but when’ve i ever done what i’m meant to?” tom says, and francis laughs, a weak little wheezing thing, and that’s victory enough for now.


	47. you witness the tempests of the ocean (esther)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in ep2 crozier and blanky are talking about experiences they had on one of parry's expeditions, meaning they would have met in 1821 and the earliest and 1824 at the latest. blanky would have been 19/20 or 22/23, and croz would have been 24/25 or 27/28

esther blanky is a sensible woman. 

this meant that she had known exactly what tom was the moment she had set eyes on him. he was more sea than man, she learned, ever-changing and patient and deep, deeper than any of them would ever know. and dark, and at times cold enough to freeze, and she had loved him anyway.

but she wasn’t a fool. she had gone into their marriage with her eyes open because like the sea, tom could never be held in one place, to one person. he told her this and oh, for a time he had tried, had been the affectionate husband and attentive father, but the open water had always called to him. it itched, he had told her once, to be here unmoving and stagnant, crawling under his skin and making him restless. 

esther knew that he loved her, in his own way, and she was content with that. she had pulled him close and kissed him and told him to leave.

(he’d return to her though, like the tides, like he always had.)

it takes him longer now, years and years of hardship, and when he comes home he is battered and broken and half-starved and he is not alone. it seems as if francis is holding him up, as if tom is holding francis up, as if they are the only things keeping each other standing; esther takes them both in and feeds them and doesn’t ask any questions. 

she knew francis, of course, liked to say that she knew him well. he was gone more often than not but he sent letters, little trinkets for the girls; when he was on shore long enough he would come and take up a drawer and a half in a guest room that saw little use. he was fond of spirits but never in front of her daughters, and while esther was observant enough to see that he was rarely sober, francis hid it well, which she respected. and most of all, though, he loved tom, perhaps as much as esther did. perhaps more.

the two of them are different now, the the same tom and francis that esther had known. there were similarities, of course- tom’s laughter was still unabashed and too-loud, francis’s smiles still small and treasured- but there was a weariness to them, a weight that they bore together. they had known each other nearly three decades; this was merely another secret.

she should have expected it, then, their closeness. she is not surprised to find them curled around each other on the sofa one night, dimly lit by the guttering fire, francis’s face pressed to tom’s throat. there is no jealousy, nothing save a queer welling of affection deep in her chest; she doesn’t wake them, and instead pulls the quilt from the back of the armchair and covers them with it. neither stir.

“you love him,” she says to tom the next morning, and it’s not a question. he had crept into bed sometime in the night and now sat watching her at her vanity, brushing out her hair. there was more grey there than she would have liked, blending in with the blonde, lit by morning’s watery sunlight. 

he doesn’t answer right away, not really, but he meets her eyes in the mirror, and that’s all the answer that she really needs. but he speaks regardless, says simply, “aye.”

“he’s good for you, tom.” she sets down her brush and reaches for her hairpins. “i can see it, clear as day. don’t you ever lose sight’ve that one.”

when esther glances up tom is smiling at her, something warm and rare, something that softens the craggy lines in his face. he reaches for his cane and hauls himself up, hobbles over to press a hand to her shoulder and drop a kiss to her crown. 

“you’re good for me also,” he tells her, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. she covers his hand on her shoulder with her own. “francis, he’s part’ve me, but esther-- you’re home. you’ve always been home.”


	48. the sound of the sky before thunder (blanky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> historical notes:
> 
>  
> 
> -james clark ross had three children between 1845 and 1850
> 
> -on john ross's second expedition (1829-1833) blanky actually got very, very ill. 
> 
> -he was one of three mates on the expedition, meaning that he may have been the bosun that mediated a potential mutiny in june 1829 that ross mentions in his memoir: "...the boatswain stepped forward, and after calling on some others to join him, observed, that as the season was so far advanced, they were not willing to go without a fresh agreement; a resolution in which he was joined by the majority of the crew."
> 
> -the crew of the victory was contracted only for a summer; the mutiny was founded on the fear that they'd be confined for longer than they were contracted. they were in the arctic for four years.

as a younger man, tom had been proud to have been tapped for the booth expedition.

ross had seemed near a god to him, then, in his sharp-cut uniform and shiny medals. tom had spent his fair amount of time around navy men, but they were all seamen and mates, men who spoke in the same rough, vulgar language as he. he’d never rubbed elbows with ranking officers, with their immaculately-kept appearances and posh accents.

he knew better, now. 

two decades after, older and more weathered and having clawed his way to be where he was _,_ tom looks at ross and he just sees an old man. oh, he still cut an imposing enough figure, broad-shouldered and tall and stone-faced, chest sparkling with medal after medal, wielding his title of  _admiral_ like a whip. but tom had seen things, survived things that this man couldn’t ever possibly imagine; ross only inspired contempt, now.

“admiral,” he rasps with a sharp smile.

and ross just looks at him a moment, taking him in, something tight about his mouth and in his eyes. tom hadn’t been sure that the man would even recognize him- it had been twenty years, after all, and he had been just a mate, below the notice of a man such as ross- but the strained expression on his face spoke otherwise.

“mister blanky.” he sounded the same, too. tom hated it. 

“wanted to congratulate you on your promotion,” tom says, irreverent as ever but just this side of polite. he extends his hand and ross takes it, because it would be indecorous to do otherwise. “i’m sure you’ve been a great service to the crown an’ country an’ all that.”

“thank you,” ross manages after a moment, because how was one meant to respond to that? tom was used to it, though, even strove for it. “i’ve heard mutterings of commendations for sir john’s men. you should be proud.”

tom tightens his grip on ross’s hand and pulls him close; the man’s expression doesn’t change but tom can see the tendons in his neck tense, his jaw clench. “i should be the one thankin’ you,” he says in undertone, and he knows there’s something dark in his voice, something that had been there all the way back in ‘29 and had only grown since. “those three hundred miles to fury beach, that taught me how to walk an’ how to be hungry. taught me to respect a man for his deeds over his rank, ‘cause those shiny medals’re the only reason you’re not rottin’ back in batty bay.”

ross’s face had gone ashen, his dark eyes focused sharp on tom’s and the smile he still wore. his grip is tight, too, white-knuckled and unrelenting. tom continues on, barely above a dangerous whisper, “you got a knightship out’ve it, but i can’t count the times i’d thought ‘bout you bleedin’ out on the ice.”

and then he leans back and that vague, pleasant expression shutters back into place. to anyone else, it would have just looked like a moment of intimate discussion. “an’ send my thoughts to sir james, too. children’re always a gift.”


	49. the photo that has faded in the envelope (goodsir)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psychiatry didn't really get its start until the later half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, but john was very big in medicine at the time so i think he'd be at least a little on top of stuff like that (even if his purview was anatomy and cell theory)

there is a time, after harry returns, when he is fragile and shaken and strange. he moved in unfamiliar ways, slow or fast or barely at all, sharp and abrupt, almost flinching. his face was thinner and cheeks hollower, covered with the rich, dark curls of his beard, and his eyes were shadowed with something that john couldn’t ever quite place. 

(it was grief that darkened his little brother’s face, he thinks sometimes, or fear, or guilt, or a mixture of the three.)

john visits when he can because even though harry is ensconced in the childhood safety of the family home, he worries regardless. he carves out time, he makes the tedious trip between anstruther and edinburgh over and over and over. he reads, too, on what things like starvation and cold could possibly do to the mind, the effects of trauma on a human soul. much of it was purely theoretical, of course, but sometimes he would see his brother reflected back to him in the pages, and it scared him.

it is sunday, now, in mid-may when the weather begins to get hot, and john knows that it is a bad day as soon as he sees harry in a sweater with a scarf slung ‘round his neck. that is how days are categorized now: good days and bad days. on good days harry smiles and laughs and carries on conversations with ease, almost like the little brother he had been  _before;_ on bad days, he is quiet and withdrawn, sometimes frustrated, always chilled as if he had left something of himself there on the ice.

there are metal buckets in the shed outside that they had used as children to haul all manner of creatures. john grabs three.

“come with me,” he says, and shoves a bucket into harry’s hands. “we’re going to the beach.”

harry had given him a quizzical look, startled, his brows drawn into a furrow that broken the melancholic expression he had donned previously. but he followed regardless, trekking with john down the hill, silent. that was fine; john would not make him talk.  _could_ not make him talk, really. he had tried his best he he had never quite known what to make of this new harry.

they roll up their trousers and strip their shoes and socks, the sand cold and wet between their toes. the tide had just receded, gentle, lapping waves sliding back and leaving shallow pools behind it. as children, they would have been absolutely over the moon.

john glances over and harry is staring at his feet, brows furrowed as he clenches and unclenches his toes in the sand. soft, he asks, “are you alright?”

“i’m fine,” harry mumbles, and he’s  _not,_ but he seems lighter in a way, his shoulders looser. he looks up and straight at john and there are no ghosts in his expression. “i’ve missed this, i think. the sand, the beach. home.”

there were times when he wasn’t here even if his body was, his gaze gone blank and distant, seeing things thousands of miles away. john wondered what he thought of, sometimes, what things he had seen to make him his way, and then always decided that he was better off not knowing. 

john doesn’t have the words to say all of this to anyone, let alone harry. he missed his little brother when he went to those far off places where no one could follow, and sometimes it made him feel sad and sick, but harry was  _here,_ right now, wading in tidepools and looking out over the water with something almost like the awe and yearning he had worn when they were younger.

“it’s something to come back for,” john agrees, and it doesn’t make things better but harry flashes him a smile, small and quick and gone in a heartbeat, and that would just have to do for now.


End file.
